SHE'S FOR REALS.

Yes. I've watched the movie a million times. Yes. I was that guy that was like: "Huh, I wonder if they really have that site up." Yes. I read all the entries on the site. Yes. I need to stop this. Yes. This is why you all adore me.

"Please call us back as soon as possible so we can get your information and send over these tickets!" A heavy Midwestern accent says to my voicemail last evening.

The voicemail and the very nasally voice mentioned some sort of drawing I entered when I was visiting a friend in Milwaukee a few months ago. I tried to remember the drawing as I jotted down the phone number I was to call tor reach "Kayla" the girl with a voice that sound like she was wearing a clothespin on her nose.

I sat on my couch with the pen and slip of paper with the random digits inbetween my fingers rehashing every place I had been in that visit where I could have been naive enough to think I had an opportunity to win anything. But instead of dwelling I seized the moment and dialed the number and awaited someone to pick up.

I know. I know. I totally know what you're thinking. "BYRON! COME ON! This is too good to be true! You can't even think for a second that this isn't some sort of set up... some sort of ploy. Some sort of way to find out your personal information with a faux bribe! BYRON WAKE UP!"

That's the the thing you may or may not know about me. I'm pretty awake. But sometimes you just want to hope that something randomly exciting could be true. Like somewhere there HAS to be a lost Atlantis or the Bermuda Triangle DOES exist or Jake Gyllenhaal is TOTALLY gay. Sometimes it's just more fun to have that second that it is possible that something you weren't expecting and totally have always wanted to happen to you... could actually be happening. In that exact moment! Especially since that something could change your point of view of late.

"Hello? Sundance Vacations, this is Kayla." Says the pinched voice.

"Yes, um, I just received a call... that ... I won something?"

"Oh! Yes! You did! You are one of our lucky winners!"

"Well... how does this work...what do I have to do?" I hesitated. "This sounds too good to be true."

"Ohhhhh, no. It's true. You just need to come to our office and have a meeting with us for an hour. We will show you some of our properties we have available in other states that you can buy... and..."

"SO! Wait. I have to buy something to get this trip..." I interrupt annoyed that my Thai food was getting cold from this call.

"Well... yes... sorta... but it..."

"I'm not interested..."

"No, sir, wait! It's a free trip! You just..."

"Do you think I'm stupid?" I snap.

"No... I never said..." Her voice lowers to a whisper.

"Do you think that I don't know what this is about? Some sort of time sharing?"

"No... it's..."

"It's been a long year for me... I don't need people calling me during dinner to try to make me think I have things coming to me that aren't. This is bull-shit."

"But... it is a free trip all you have to do is..."

"No." I snap and hang up the phone.

As sit down and poke at my spring rolls I realize I was a bit harsh with her. She was probably some college student just doing her job. HELL! I've done phone sales before and I KNOW how hard it is.

But there is something about false hope. That feeling you get when all hopes are game and the minute you find out it's not going to happen: a free trip, getting a dream job or having a relationship that you were so willing to put the work in to actually succeed, feels like you just paid a million dollars for an non-returnable jacket that people say makes you look fat.

False hope is especially bad when you take out that lost hope on a cute girl named Kayla. Sorry Kayla.

My Saturday night was totally consisting of Chex Mix and a movie I will not say the name of because I could get beat down in a dark alley(or in a bright sunny-day alley, for that matter) if I mention what the name could even be close to(ahem, The Holiday).

Anyway, I was doing the whole "In for the evening" look. You know, my "in for the evening" attire with my "in for the evening" messy hair and "in for the evening" unshaven look while sprawled on my couch. I may or may not have been writing down quotes from the movie that I will not mention(ahem, The Holiday) laughing and crying and being all "Dang! Why do certain lines in certain movies HAVE to ALWAYS be right!" Because, lately, that's what I have been doing... just looking for places and things and movies and music to identify with. In certain segments of our life, when we're going through some things we just need a little help with, we try to find things where we can say: "Tooootalllly...." Because, well, as much as our friends love us they do get tired of saying: "It's going to be alright." And as much as our parents and mailmen and the guy that walks his dog every morning right in front of my apartment say: "It's going to be alright", you still keep searching for answers. And things seem tough and Saturday nights like that can seem lonely and the world can seem bitter and cruel and mean and dumb and not worth all the time you try to invest in it and then you get really crabby and your "In for the evening" attire isn't as comfy as it was supposed to be and you hate the world and nothing seems right in life and then... you get a text that says:

"Will passed away."

You will pause your movie. You will reread the text three and four and six times. You will sit up and hold your cell phone in your hand and shake it a little bit to see if the words that form that sentence will jumble in to a new organization of words to spell out something that will not make you want to cry.

Will was this big happy guy that came to my bar every shift I worked. He was the type of guy that had that laugh that echoed even if the room would have been padded with thick gooey no echo stuff. This laugh. DAMN! Huge. Loud. And it happened often because he always told bad jokes that were so bad they ended up good.

"Byron, Byron what does a gay horse say?" He would ask winking while sipping on his lite beer while I'd be doing glass cleaning.

"Um, I dunno Will, what does a gay horse say?"

"Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!"

And I would shake my head and laugh and then we'd most likely cheer our beers and he and his friends would stay for hours entertaining my often long shifts at the bar. He was just a good person that, well, you can just tell... because he got nicer and nicer the more drinks he drank. You can always tell a person's heart by what kind of drunk they are. I didn't know him well, just from the bar. But sometimes you just know people no matter how often you see him.

Plus. He was only twenty-six... my exact age.

I sat in my dark apartment with Cameran Diaz paused with her mouth open on my t.v. screen, I realized I've been looking for answers in a lot of wrong places. Movies give you the pretty version of all endings. Friends, as much as they love you, love you and want to tell to you the things you most likely want to hear. The mail man, well, we really never talk about anything except magazines getting stuck in mailboxes. But the people, the ones you barely know, they are the ones with the answers. They are the ones, when you lose them, don't leave gaping holes in your life, but they leave harsh reminders.

They remind you that sometimes you do not have enough time to sit around and feel sorry for what isn't happening and go for the things that are. They remind you that no matter how old you are ANYTHING can happen at ANY time.

They remind you that you should laugh as loud as you can because it will leave an echo that will be heard long after you are gone and will remind those, even those you didn't know it could remind, that things are much better than they seem.

Having a firm dream in travel show hosting, a popular cable network was offering an opportunity in fulfilling that dream. With Josh Eisenberg at the camera helm, I took to the Chicago neighborhood streets showing the best of Chicago and my best Travel Show persona. A possible UR Chicago show series is in the works based on this pilot.

A commercial piece I did voice over work for in July 2008. This involved working with the producer in a recording studio off a pre-written script. It was an online "Go Green" awareness commercial.

2008, Dave Heniff Productions for Earthkeeper

So a woman that smelled like my grandma sat down next to me on the train the other day. This doesn't happen often because, you know, my grandma never really smelled like anyone. She had that grandma smell that if you put her in a grandma line-up and someone blindfolded you, you would have totally known which grandma was my grandma. It was this mix of lightly scented floral hand lotion, fresh of the clothesline clothes smell and a dash of( I swear to this day) smells like she rubbed daisies all over body. When you'd give her this big hug, it would stay with you. Not in a gross "I smell like old person" way. That's rude. This was nice.

"You know, you smell like what my grandma used to smell like." I say to the woman who is now reading a folded over newspaper."

She looks at me for a second. Raises an eyebrow over her thick rimmed glasses and just nods and returns to read her newspaper.

"So how's your day going?" I ask trying to get her attention again.

"Fine... just fine... and yours?" She asks putting the paper in her lap. She shifts her body towards me on the train and smiles.

"You know, it's been tough these past couple of days with deadlines and just trying to get stuff done and..."

We continue the ride talking about everything that has been going on in each others lives. I told her about my last few vacations. She told me about the birds she's been watching out in the back bird feeder of her house and about the seeds she had to shake out of the now dying flowers so she can replant for the next season. We laughed and she playfully tapped on the shoulder to tell me that I was making her laugh too hard.

As the train arrived at my stop I got up and wrapped my backpack around my shoulder and hugged her and told her I'd see her again soon. The instant I stepped off the train and headed up to the busy city street I felt a whole bit lighter.

Of course, this didn't at all happen. I ended up sitting next to this woman in complete silence while she paged through her newspaper slowly breathing not to draw attention to the fact that she indeed did smell like my Oma, but in fact was not my Oma.

But sometimes, so we don't forget them, we have to imagine that they're there with us in those moments where usually nothing happens. While brushing your teeth or clipping your toenails or Swiffering the hardwood floors or on the train ... some song or the way the light hits a wall or the way something smells will instantly have you in that moment conversing and chatting like the people you have lost are never really gone.

That's the great thing about the past. It's like a good perfume... too much of it is overbearing, but just the right amount in the right spots will make people unforgettable.

In November of 2008 I was a guest host for a popular Midwest restaurant review show on PBS called Check Please. After a three tier interview process I was chosen to review three Chicago restaurants and discuss with other Urbanites.

BJ on Check Please! from BJ Flitsch on Vimeo.

Rion Stassi, a hip designer friend, had a hip design party at a designy hip lounge this past week. It was one of those parties where you walk in and that ambient tech-music swarms around you along with the best dressed (short dresses that take months of rent to pay off) and shoes (that I press my face against store front windows for) on the well-dressed feet of those best dressed young twenty-somethings.

Rion is the type of a guy other guys(and guys that, um, like guys) want to be or have. Well dressed, cultured, beautiful friends, Italian(!!!!) and designs hot shit that gets in to a finalists position in a design contest with something that looks like this:

When you're at these events you tend to get placed in those positions where you have to awkwardly start up a conversation with a stranger. For me, this usually involves a few cocktails.

"So, wow, you teach?" I ask this friend of Stossi's. She's this cute brunette with a perfect fitting black dress on.

"Yup, world cooking to children!" She glows when she says this. "My fiance teaches also. He also is an actor!

I start to tell them what I'm up to these days. Freelance writing and bartending and designing and teaching and traveling. As I continue to meet more of Rion's friends and strangers I start to find out that everyone in that room is, well, pretty fricken awesome.

The cute blond drinking a martini was an event planner for a non for profit childrens' organization. Another guy was a designer for a t.v. show they shoot in Chicago. The guy wearing this flashy silver tie does editing for a local magazine. The more I chatted the more I realized that I was in a room full of freaking talented people. Were many of them rich? Um, no. But where they doing things that they were really in to and were proud to talk about?

So many parties I've been to have involved people who talk about their careers as if they were whispering the diagnosis of cancer: "I'm a secretary at a bank" a woman will mumble or "I work retail downtown" another one will say. And then they will go on and talk about anything else than the job-- nice cars or big houses or where they got their last massage. But the people at this event seemed really content in talking about projects that weren't only interesting, but were making an impact on other people... getting a voice or educating or anything other than just pushing paper.

On my cab ride home I had the window rolled down. It was one of those perfect ends to a perfect night. I leaned my head back on the seat and watched as the city scape whipped by. There are times where we forget where we are. When we are surrounded by so many things, it's easy to look at what others have and try to figure out why you don't have it. You know, an unlimited income to shop at Barney's COOp(sigh) or one of those houses in Lincoln Park made out of all glass(ho hum), but then you think about the things you do have that those same people might not: Really really really talented friends who are actually making an impact on others and not just on their credit cards. That's why I moved to this city. I have to stop worrying about money... especially when I'll just marry rich. (Wink).

Netflix, holy dang, Netflix has blown my mind in that fact that it is totally throwing these crazy awesome recommendations at me. It's like Netflix and I were total roommies back in the dorms of college and even though we have grown so much since we were last really in the same room together, we totally still get each other. I love you Netflix!

ANYWAY, "the 'flix" (we're totally on the nickname basis) recommended this move called Jeffery(as did Josh at the same time!). It's this movie about this gay guy that's from Wisconsin(interesting...) who lives in New York in the early 90's when HIV and AIDS just started to become a huge fear. So the main character vows to stop having sex because it is terrifying and that is, of course, when he meets the hot love of his life that... well, has HIV. The story follows this quirky guy(named Jeffery) through this crazzzzy adventure.

But there was one thing in the movie that really really really bugged me that was said by one of the characters:

"In a few years, this whole HIV thing will be cured... gone... right?"

(Excellent transition starts here). I'm running/walking the AIDS FOUNDATION WALK/RUN this weekend here in Chicago because, well, it still hasn't been cured. And as much as I love well made movies that discuss the topic of these issues... I don't want the issue to still exist. And, of course, you can totally help.

If you'd like to DONATE... VISIT HERE.

Walking on the street to get something to eat on a quiet fall day.

Byron: So, you know, maybe he and I will work out someday. That feeling won't go away. It's just one of those feelings that you have forever and as hard as you try to get rid of it, you will always have that feeling.
Josh: Like my feelings for Lisa Loeb.
Byron: Yes, Josh. Yes. Just like your feelings for Lisa Loeb.

Louis Armstrong said this once. I didn't know this until this past Sunday where I spent the entire lazy day in bed(YES THE ENTIRE DAY IN BED! NO. I wasn't sick. No. I wasn't depressed and wallowing in my sheets. It was raining. I haven't had a REAL day off since, um, never and when it is raining and wet and gloomy and the Netflix decided to be all M.I.A. for the weekend and I didn't really (SHOCK!) want to watch another episode of Sex and the City, I opted for bed all day).

Anyway, I did make it out to grab a newspaper and a coffee with the hopes that I was totally going to be one of those productive Sunday people who window shop or have brunch with friends. But instead I slid back in to my white sheets pulled out the Travel Section of the Trib and listened to this Jazz station online. It's this station I tend to pull up when I just need that casual background music while writing or reading a magazine.

Paging through the cover story about sailing, a documentary started playing on the radio about Louis Armstrong and his impact on Jazz. Now, I'm not Jazz. Not even close. I don't like it. I mean, I can appreciate it. I know it's out there. But I'm only selfish when it comes to listening to it and use it as noise. But this guy with a British accent starts chatting about how Armstrong defined the evolution of music and all this really sharp smart stuff that I've totally already forgot. But then this antique choppy sounding clip of Armstrong said:

"What we play is life."

The documentary went on to discuss Armstrong's background. His mom was a clothes washer and a prostitute. His life seemed destined to failure. But he discovered his passion and learned that there were more notes out there that he had to play other than the ones he was handed and clearly we all know where he went with that.

Lately I can identify with that. You know, not the whole "My mom was a prostitute." She wasn't that. She was a homemaker. I had a good life. But being given the solid "do, re, and mi's" by my parents. Those lessons of life we all learn before we go out in to the world and either decide to stick close to what we were taught or jump off that giant music scale and try to harmonize with the things that scare us to death.

I'm scared to death.

Lying in bed with a stack of news in my lap, I couldn't help but think about how the choices we make either end up sounding like a beautiful note or a crunchy and flat melody. Like Jazz, you can't predict anything that's going to happen. I might flop at being a freelancer. I might fail at being a travel show host or a teacher or a father or a friend, but knowing that I tried my best at finding my range... well, that's music to my ears.

Dear Girl That Elbowed Me In the Arm Really Hard On the Bus the Other Day to Get Out of Your Way,

Do you know that I bruise, like, really easily? No, seriously? It's been this thing that happens to me since, well, I could bruise. Usually I understand why I bruise. Oops. Just bumped my clumsy self in to a brick wall. Bruise. Oops. Just hit my knee on the corner of my bed because my bedroom is too small for the size of bed I have. Bruise. Oops. I'm in the way of a twenty-something black haired girl on a crowded city bus during rush hour and instead of taking her ipod out of her really floppy mean-girl ears and saying "Um, excuse me sir, could I squeak around you and step out to my stop?" I get a giant "UMPH" with an elbow in to my side which within a few hours will show a bruise. BRUISE!

But that one I didn't understand, Girl That Gave Me A Bruise, were you just having a bad day? I imagine you at your house. Your cat sitting on your paisley bedspread watching you get ready for your day at work. The cat's flipping its cute little calico tail while you put that ugly sweater vest over that uglier white collared shirt deal you were trying to sport. Perhaps you had NPR on the radio in the kitchen--no, you didn't look smart enough--you had KISS FM on your radio in the kitchen while, perhaps, your low life mooching boyfriend sleeps in because, oh you know, he doesn't have a job and hasn't had one for three months and won't get a job and you're constantly fighting about it and you hate your hair and you hate your job that you HAVE TO KEEP BECAUSE YOUR MOOCHING BOYFRIEND WON'T GET ONE OF HIS OWN! And maybe you want to get married and he won't marry you because a) he can't afford a ring and b) because he just can't get his act together. You want to move out. You want to give up. You want to start your life over somewhere else with just your cat.

OR you're just a bitch.

Either way, I bruise easily and for some odd reason I don' t think I need a visual representation of your mean-y-ness. Living in this city, you will see a lot of visual representations of mean-y-ness. You've got cabs honking because they don't have to time to wait for others. You've got business dudes in snug ties yelling in to their cell phones with "just fucking get it done" types of phrases flying out of their mouths. You've got angry drunks slurring their arguments on the streets when they get kicked out of bars. HELL! I've had my angry moments. We all have.

There are a lot of angry people out there... but they don't take it out on me.

As you stepped around me and I rubbed my side where you rammed your frustrated elbow, I was tempted to say this to you in person. As I get older I realize the more I speak up, the more things change. But sometimes, whether you live in the city or somewhere in the middle of nowhere, you just have to accept that some people have shit to deal with and will share it with others and all you can do is know at least the bruise you gave me will heal and hopefully that thing you're dealing with will too.

Because the duration of bruise is a lot like the duration of life: way too short.

that this:

makes me, um, really super happy and makes me really super excited. Super excitedly happy?

Girl 1: So, is this, like, your first semester here?
Girl 2: Yup.
Girl 1: So, then, like, what's your major?
Girl 2: I'm majoring in Compassion.
Girl 1: Awesome.
Girl 2: Totally.

Me:??????????????!!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!??!?!?!?!?COMPASSION!!!!!!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!(whispered to Josh) What kind of job can you get with a "Compassion" Degree?
Josh: One at the Compassion Factory.

This is... this is... this is just amazing.

So I'm on an airplane on the way to NYC paging through my GQ when this girl sitting next to me falls asleep with her mouth open and starts to drool.

She's this cute girl, really. She's all natural brunette (think Charlotte from Sex and the City meets a bit of Jennifer Gardner and a splash of Christina Applegate in the face) and bumpy in the right places(you know where) and she was reading good magazines: Dwell, Vogue, and Ready Made. I mean, really, she was totally my type.

You know, if I was straight.

See, I think about that. What type of girl would be my kind of girl if she was single and, I was, well, straight. Now we can all agree that's like asking the Pope to go Buddhist, but it's fun to pretend. It's so necessary when things aren't going where you thought they would in life. And sometimes I truly believe it would be easier... to be straight.

As I try not to stare at the ooze coming out of my possible parallel universe girlfriend, I start to picture what kind of house we'd have. Seeing that she's reading Dwell, I'd imagine one of those all glass houses. She would totally be an editor of a high-end New York magazine and I would be doing something just as cool to have to be able to pay the mortgage on that all glass house. It would be something like Urban meets vintage decorated in the interiors(even my "parallel universe Byron" is gay) and we would have things from our exotic trips to Bora Bora decorating the walls and bookshelves.

"Mom, (parallel girlfriend's name, here) and I are spending the weekend in Cairo. She's doing a shoot for her magazine and I'm going because I can!" I will say when my mom asks if I will coming home for Thanksgiving.

"Oh! That's fantastic! You'll have a wonderful time. You'll be missed. Say hello to (parallel girlfriend's name, here). You'll be missed! We just adore her!" Of course mom would just be waiting for the marriage proposal date.

While paging through my magazine I glance back over at the brunette who is now sleeping with her head tilted a little to the left while still drooling.

She looks like she'd be a summer wedding. Late summer. It would be outside. She'd wear this really tight fitting Oscar de la Renta white gown(still gay!) and white Manolo Blahniks(GAYER YET!) and I would wear a tux or something. All our family would be sitting around us in white chairs on the beach off the coast of South America. We, of course, flew everyone in because my parallel girlfriend has family money and are pulling out all the stops. My mom would tear up and hug me after the ceremony and say: "We are just so happy it finally happened!" And my dad would smack me on the back and say something like: "Son, you've got yourself a good one there." and my brother would shake my hand and her parents would hug me and her dad would say something like: "You better watch her. She's my baby girl." And I would pat him on the shoulder and nod.

Our first dance would be at the reception where everything is candle lit. She would smile at me while we were close. The big band playing in the background. Most likely Sinatra, 'cause that's what straight couples dance to when they are in love. Later, the DJ we would so obviously hire to close the night would invite the grandparents and guests to dance the night away while we prepare ourselves for our honeymoon to some private island off of Greece that is so small maps don't even label it.

We would be in Greece. Sun shining. Wearing our Marc Jacobs glasses and riding on Mopeds and the humid Mediterranean afternoons would be filled with...sex...um, sex... with... um, her...

The plan on the plane is jostled by a sharp bump waking the cute brunette from her nap and at the same time snapping me out of the daydream. I continue to page through GQ turning to a page that has this hot hunky guy (think Mark Feuerstein).

I start to imagine Mark and I living in a house... a modern house... one made out of glass...

See, pretending is only fun until you actually have to, you know, "do-it". Then it's back to reality... like marrying models/actors that are in sleek advertisements for Dior ads.

Stylishly political. I love my job!

They say: "Patience is a virtue."

I think "they" must have had a lot of time on their hands because this weekend will mark the one year anniversary of ending a four year relationship. It was this upcoming weekend where everything in my life completely flipped ranging from changing addresses to which part(usually down the middle) of the bed I slept in. It was also in this upcoming weekend that was a catalyst to where I am at this exact moment: In a new apartment sitting in my bed and listening to my music as loud as I want because there is no one else here to tell to live my life differently.

But while alone, I have noticed that I have been waiting.

See, the old school of thought is that you need that "other" to make it better. So many people in my life have already found that "other" and do all the things that he or she have been dreaming, but now as a pair and without fear of doing it alone.

"We just had to do it." My co-worker says one afternoon making his french press coffee at the gallery I sometimes work at. He's in his mid-thirties and reminds me of that teacher that would let you swear in class. "We wanted to go to Africa... so we went..."

"I would love to go to Africa... that's been a dream." I say back to him sipping on my cooling latte.

"Then go. What's stopping you?"

"I don't want to go it alone."

At night I still do that thing with the pillows. You know, where you line them up next to you and wrap your leg around them as if there was someone who has always been there is there. I don't do this to be pathetic. I do it because that's how I liked to sleep. Dave and I had a full-sized bed. There wasn't much room, but there was plenty of room to cuddle. And in this past year, I've been OK with that. Not having someone there to cuddle. Not having someone there to always eat dinner with. Not having someone there to tell me that the lady on the bus who glared at me because I bumped her exposed knee was just a bitch.

But I'm not OK with not having someone there to do the things I've always wanted to do with my life and letting that stop me... like travel.

So as a birthday present to myself/"one year of hell and you're going to be fine in the second year of being on your own" gift, I purchased a trip to New York. I've been before, actually with Dave, but lately I've been wanting to go back and just see in a different perspective. A few weeks ago I swallowed the whole "I've really never done the whole traveling on my own thing" fear and bought the ticket.

And for the first time I don't really feel like I have to wait.

When I told my mom this she said something like: "Wow... I just... I just don't think I could go to a big city on my own. Aren't you nervous?" I took a sip of my ice water and looked around the patio we were having brunch and really took a second to think about it. Was I nervous? Fuck yeah. But instead I told her something like: "Well, if I wait for someone to go with I might have to wait a long time... because I want a good thing... and you know the saying.

Because, in the end, patience is really a virtue. Not when it comes to stopping your life waiting for someone else, but when it involves being patience in finding someone really good to slow down your life to let them jump aboard.

And unlike us, life doesn't have the ability to be patient and won't wait for anyone.

A few months ago I was told to make a list of all these things I want to get accomplished. It was a friend of mine and were eating Thai food at one of my favorite joints. With chopsticks in hands she was all: "Well, if you wanna do something... write it down so you don't forget it."

And that's what I did.
And the list is long.

I'm not going to go in to too many details, but I did tick off one thing on the list.

"Get published somewhere new." CHECK.

Now on to the fifty other things.